Fielden co SS 5 
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INDIA AS Ae 
MISSION FIELD 


REV. ROBERT D. BANNISTER 


INDIA 


AS - A - MISSION - FIELD 


REV. ROBERT D. BANNISTER 


iS 


PUBLISHED BY 
CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE PUBLISHING CO. 
SouTtTH NYACK, N. Y. 


& 
Copyright, 1899, by 
The Christian Alliance Publishing Co. 


a 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 
By REV. R. D. BANNISTER. 


NDIA’S proverbial riches have been 
sought after by the nations ever 
since the time when Ahaseurus 

“reigned from India even unto Ethio- 
pia, overa hundred and seven and 
twenty provinces;” but India of today 
is a picture of the utter inability of 
mere human philosophy to raise man 
or to make a nation prosperous. The 
condition of its people is also a terri- 
ble object lesson, showing what hun- 
dreds of years of idolatry, ignorance, 
Superstition, shameless and nameless 
Sins can bring a nation to. With its 
former riches and greatness, its beau- 
ty and wonderful natural resources, 
India might have been in the fore-front 
of nations; but instead it is away in 
the background and seems specially 
under the curse of God. After Adam 


4 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


fell, God’s curse upon the ground for 
his sake was “thorns also and thistles 
shalt thou bring forth.” This is espec- 
ially true of India, where nearly every 
tree and shrub has its thorns, some of 
them one and a half inches long. 
India is still one of the most back- 
ward countries of the East, because 
everything new that is brought in, is 
brought in by others. No progress is 
made by the people themselves. Were 
it not for the British government we 
believe India would have no railway, 
postoffice or telegraph systems today. 
In some things the people refuse to ad- 
vance. The fields are yet cultivated in 
about the same way that they were 
centuries ago. Some years since, the 
British government sent out some 
modern steel plows and started a model 
farm to show the people how to culti- 
vate their land in order to obtain good 
crops. But it was all in vain, the 
plows lie there rusting away and the 
people go on using their wooden plows 
just as their forefathers did..1) "They; 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 5 


however, make good use of the rail- 
ways and the good hard roads the gov- 
ernment has built and the educated 
ones use well the postoffice and tele- 
graph. 

The people are naturally very intelli- 
gent, but with the exception of some of 
the higher castes, they are kept in a 
state of ignorance and superstition, 
very few of them knowing how to read 
or write. Had they the opportunities 
that our western people have, coupled 
with the knowledge and the love of Je- 
sus, they would come out far ahead of 
us in many ways. Their beautiful tem- 
ples and tombs, the famous Taj Mahal, 
the fine carvings in wood seen in all 
the old towns, are monuments of their 
skill in architecture, sculpture and 
carving. With only very crude tools, 
they are able to turn out in many lines 
of goods, far better workmanship with 
far neater and prettier designs, than 
our people can with all their modern 
tools and up-to-date machinery. 

But mostly now their intellects are 


6 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


subservient to their idolatries, their 
passions and their sins. They wor- 
ship and serve the creature rather than 
the Creator, who is blessed forever. 
Instead of serving the Living God they 
worship dumb idols of wood, stone, 
metal, or baked clay, and also animals’ 
and men. 

Thus their intelligence becomes 
dwarfed and debased and it is true of 
them what the Scripture saith, “They 
that make them are like unto them, so 
is every one that trusteth in them.” 
Connected with their worship is much 
that is impure, immoral, and very ob- 
scene, so that their worship instead of 
lifting them up to a life of purity and 
holiness, and drawing them nearer to 
God, serves rather to stimulate lust- 
ful propensities and desires. Their 
prayers—if indeed prayers they can be 
called—are all for material rather 
than Spiritual blessings. The women 
pray for children; the men for good 
crops, success in business, temporal 
prosperity, and even help to sin. The 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 7 


ancient thugs of India, a band of rob- 
bers and murderers, used to ask aid 
and protection of the goddess Kali, 
when they went out on their terrible 
raids of robbery and murder. There 
is little or no thought of spiritual bles- 
sing in their requests. Many of their 
offerings are to appease their gods and 
goddesses and to ward off calamity 
and disease. Devi, the small-pox god, 
is worshipped to ward off small-pox; 
and Mariammi, the goddess of cholera, 
is worshipped that cholera may be 
kept away. Animals are often offered 
in sacrifice, with the thought of substi- 
tution, showing that in India as else- 
where, man has intuitive conception of 
the need of sacrifice and the law that, 
“Without shedding of blood, there is 
no remission.” 

They evidently think that their gods 
can be cheated, just as they cheat each 
other, and even that they sometimes 
deserve punishment. The writer, 
once passing by a temple, and seeing 
the door closed and locked on the out- 


8 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


side, asked the people the reason of it. 
They answered, “We asked our god for 
rain and he did not give us any, so we 
locked him up for a little while.” In 
offering a goat to their gods, they kill 
the goat in front of the idol and then 
give the idol the head and skin, while 
they take away the goat and eat it. So 
in offering a cocoanut to the monkey- 
god, Maruti, the nut is broken on the 
head of the god and he gets the shell 
with a tiny piece of the nut left in it, 
while the offerer eats the nut. Of 
course these gods do not know wheth- 
er they have goat or skin, nut or shell. 
Thus the people believe their gods are 
like unto themselves, that just as they 
deceive each other, so their gods can 
be deceived. 

India is a land of many people, many 
languages, many religions and many 
gods. There is altogether in India a 
population of about three hundred mil- 
lion souls, of whom Hinduism claims 
about two hundred and eleven mil- 
lions, while some fifty-eight millons 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 9 


are followers of the false prophet, Ma- 
homet. The Parses, followers of Zo- 
roaster number about ninety thou- 
sands, most of whom live in and around 
Bombay. Large numbers of Buddhists 
live in South India and Ceylon, 
and in Bombay and Western India, 
some called Jains. Besides these larg- 
er religious bodies there are a number 
of smaller sects of Deists, such as the 
Arya, Samaj, Brahmo Samaj, and Par- 
thana Samaj. These sects oppose idol- 
atry and worship only the true God 
but deny Jesus Christ to be anything 
more than a mere man, and recognize 
no need of an atonement. 

The Hindus alone worship thirty- 
three crores, or three hundred and 
thirty millions of gods, thus as in 
Athens of old there are more gods than 
people in India. Of these Brahma, 
Vishnu, and Shiva, may be considered 
chief. In the Hindu Scriptures Brah- 
ma is spoken of as having committed 
incest with his own daughter and for 
that reason had one of his five heads 


10 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


cut off and is now considered unworthy 
of worship. There remains only one 
temple now in all India dedicated to 
his worship. 

Opinion is divided among the Brah- 
mins as to whether Vishnu or Shiva is 
the chief god. Those who consider 
Vishnu to be the chief god, and wor- 
ship him, are called Vaishnavites, 
while those who give Shiva that honor 
are called Shivites. Shiva is wor- 
shipped under many emblems, some of 
which are very obscene. Such objects 
of worship can only suggest impure 
thoughts instead of purifying the 
minds of the worshippers. From some 
of the stories told of him in the Hindu 
religious books, he may well be called 
the incarnation of drunkenness and 
lust. These three gods are called the 
Hindu Triad, all of which are wor- 
shipped by the Smartha Bramins. 
Some of these will sometimes claim 
that the Hindu Triad is the same as 
the Christian Trinity, only under dif- 
ferent names, 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. alah 


Next in importance among the Hindu 
gods come perhaps the various incar- 
nations of the god Vishnu. The stor- 
ies told of some of these incarnations 
are very vile, quite unfit for publica- 
tion. None of these incarnations was 
ever even supposed to have conferred 
any lasting spiritual benefit upon the 
people. Ram was a warrior who 
fought a great battle. Mutch was a 
fish which brought up the Vedas from 
the bottom of the sea into which they 
had been cast by a demon. And oth- 
ers became recognized as gods incar- 
nate for similar reasons. The Hindus 
are now looking for the coming of the 
tenth incarnation of Vishnu, whom 
they call Kalanki. He is supposed to 
be coming as a great deliverer and the 
one who ushers in the golden age, an 
age of righteousness and peace. When 
he comes they say their country will 
be no more controlled by foreigners 
but will be given back to the Hindus 
again. Just about a year ago pamph- 
lets were sent throughout India telling 


12 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


the people to be ready, that Kalanki 
was just at hand. How much this is 
like the Christian doctrine of the Sec- 
ond Coming of our Lord Jesus, and 
how gladly Christians, who believe in 
the pre-millennial coming of the Lord, 
should be to take out the blessed news 
of salvation to them! We can tell them 
there is a Great Deliverer coming soon, 
who will usher in a golden age of 
righteousness and peace but that His 
name is Jesus Christ, not Kalanki. 
The more ignorant classes of Hindus 
know little of their great gods and in- 
carnations, or of their own religious 
books. They worship stone, brass and 
other metal images, some of which are 
images of the gods above mentioned, 
and others are images of snakes and 
animals, while some have no distin- 
guishing shape whatever. A _ large 
stone or piece of rock is put up under 
a tree, or sometimes a number of peb- 
bles are gathered up and put together; 
some red ochre or paint is put on, a 
Brahmin priest mutters an incantation 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 13 


over it and it becomes a god. Often 
living men, animals and snakes are 
worshipped. We once visited a fam- 
ous Hindu saint (?) in his temple and 
saw intelligent Brahmins come in and 
fall down at his feet and worship him. 
The people came from far and near to 
worship this so-called holy man. 

One day in every year the Hindus 
worship the oxen that have drawn 
their plows and wagons for the re- 
mainder of the year. Three hundred 
and sixty-four days these poor animals 
are beaten, abused and often half 
starved; but on one day they are tak- 
en down to the river and bathed, their 
horns are painted red, garlands of 
flowers are put around their necks and 
the people fall down at their feet and 
worship them. Sometimes while wor- 
shipping living snakes women are bit: 
ten and they die. 

Such are the gods of the poor Hin- 
dus of which some are well described 
in Psa. exy. 3,7, “Their idols are silver 
and gold, the work of men’s hands. 


14 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


They have mouths but they speak not; 
eyes have they but they see not; they 
have ears but the hear not; noses have 
they but they smell not; they have 
hands but they handle not; feet have 
they but they walk not; neither speak 
they through their throat.” 

In the villages of Berar, the god Ma- 
ruti is the god mostly worshipped. 
This god is a stone carved in the shape 
of a monkey with its tail over its shoul- 
der. He is supposed to be the keeper 
and protector of the lives and proper- 
ties of the people and images of him 
are often put in the fields to protect 
the crops. No sacrifices are ever made 
to Maruti, but offerings of fruits, ¢o- 
coanuts and food are given him. In 
order to show them the folly of wor- 
shipping such gods, and Maruti’s utter 
inability to protect them in any way, 
we have said to them, ‘Who eats that 
rice you have just taken to Maruti, 
does he eat it?” No answer usually be- 
ing forthcoming, we go on and say, 
“You know very well he can’t eat it, 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 15 


the first dog that comes along eats it 
and runs off. Now if Maruti cannot 
protect his own dinner, how can he 
protect you?” They at once laugh and 
say, “That’s true, sir, that’s true.” And 
if we say, “Then why do you worship 
him?” They reply, “As our forefathers 
did, so we must do.” Thus they go on 
in their terrible bondage to the cus- 
tom of their ancestors, not being al- 
lowed to think for themselves, and 
when shown the folly of such worship 
are afraid to act upon their convic- 
tions. Shall we as Christians do noth- 
ing to liberate them from such hope- 
less bondage? Of course such awful 
idolatry debases and degrades the poor 
Hindus to the level of the things they 
worship. Their own proverb, “As is 
the god, so is the worshipper” is only 
too sadly true of the majority of In- 
dia’s people today. Yet their con- 
stancy, devotion and self-sacrifice in 
their worship of these dumb _ idols, 
should be an object lesson to all pro- 
fessing Christians. He worships be- 


16 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


fore he eats and is much more willing 
to deny himself pleasure and comfort 
or to sacrifice time, strength and mon- 
ey, than the majority of Christians are 
for the one True and Living God. 

The sad hopelessness of Hinduism 
and the degrading effects of idolatry 
are perhaps most of all seen in the con- 
dition of Hindu women. In all heath- 
en countries women are despised and 
degraded and treated merely as the 
slave of man, but this is especially true 
of India. Only through Christ has 
woman anywhere been honored and 
uplifted and given her rightful posi- 
tion of loving helpmeet and compan- 
ion of man. Christian sisters, aS you 
ponder thoughtfully the following 
pages, with great praise in your hearts 
for the blessings that have come into 
your own lives through Christ, lift 
your hearts in prayer to God for your 
poor heathen sisters, who are in their 
present condition because they have 
not had a chance to know Christ. 

Hindu women are especially the 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. ily 


slaves of the men and are sometimes 
treated worse than animals, for while 
Hinduism provides hospitals for cattle 
it provides none for its women. They 
are sometimes put out on the roads to 
die. We have seen women dying out- 
side their own houses on the stones, 
with no one to care for them. Had 
she been a cow she would have been 
cared for, but she was only a woman. 
This is not because the hearts of Hin- 
du men are especially hard, but be- 
cause of the teachings of Hinduism. 
Manu, the great Hindu _ law-giver, 
teaches that woman is far inferior to 
man, and should be treated as a slave. 
The Hindu woman is taught to believe 
that she has no god but her husband, 
she must worship him. 

Hindu mothers pray—so far as they 
know what prayer means—that their 
unborn children may be boys. The 
men want sons and will often curse 
their wives if the children are girls; 
this is partly because it will cost him a 
good deal of money to marry them off 


* 


18 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


in a very few years. Hindu girl ba- 
bies are thus unloved and unwelcome, 
but if they come, one of two things 
must happen. They must either be 
borne with and trained up with as 
good grace as possible or be put out 
of the way as soon as they are born. 
Before the British government had 
control of India, the latter was often 
the course taken. Hindu mothers 
would often take their little girl ba- 
pies to the banks of the Ganges and 
throw them in that so-called holy river 
as food for the crocodiles. If a croco- 
dile came to the surface, and catching 
the little thing in its huge jaws, 
crunched it until the red blood spurt- 
ed out and crimsoned the water all 
around, then the poor mother would go 
away happy, thinking that “Mother 
Gunga” had accepted her offering. If 
no crocodile appeared and the little 
babe sank in the murky water, the 
poor, superstitious mother would go 
home sad at heart, thinking that she 
had made her offering in vain, it had 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 19 


not been accepted. This is not done 
now, simply because it is not allowed 
by the government, although it is 
stated that many little girl babies are 
put away secretly still. Oh, that the 
the mothers of Christian lands would 
pity these poor mothers of heathendom 
whom idolatry, ignorance, superstition 
and sin have so degraded that they 
lose their natural maternal love for 
their offspring. 

Little girls are mostly married quite 
young, often at three or four years of 
age, and they go to live with their hus- 
bands at the age of twelve. This first 
ceremony is only called betrothal, but 
it is just as binding as marriage, for if 
the boy husband—or man as is some- 
times the case—dies after this, the girl 
is a widow for the rest of her life, she 
must never marry again. The lot of 
the Hindu widow is one of the saddest 
that can be imagined, as she is treated 
as a being accursed of God and man. 
Henceforth she is treated with ignom- 
iny and comtempt by all. All her jewels 


20 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


—-which the Hindu feminine heart loves 
so much—are broken off; she is not 
allowed to wear ornaments. They 
shave the heads of the high-caste wi- 
dows, they must go shaven the rest of 
their lives, thus showing their disgrace 
to all. One of their garments is taken 
away and they must only eat one meal 
a day for the rest of their lives. They 
may become widows, as indeed, they 
frequently do, while still little girls, 
but this must continue till their old 
age and death. One day out of every 
ten or twelve they must fast from this 
one meal, not that their fast is sup- 
posed to benefit them spiritually in 
any way, but for the benefit of the fam- 
ily. As a Hindu woman has no god 
but her husband, the widow having 
lost her husband, has of course no god. 
On their fasting days these poor wid- 
ows are not supposed to touch a drop 
of water even in India’s burning heat. 
The very touch of a Hindu widow is 
supposed to be defiling, so that nobody 
will touch her and she must touch no 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 21 


one. Thus is she, while living with the 
people, practically an outcast from so- 
ciety, having no joy or gladness in her 
life, and is mostly made the drudge of 
the house to do all the dirty work, and 
is the receptacle for foul epithet, op- 
probrium and abuse. Of course these 
things apply mostly to the higher castes 
as the hard-working people of the low- 
er castes cannot observe these rules. 
~We are glad also to state that there 
are few among the Brahmins, who are 
crying out against this awful injustice 
to widows, and are urging reform. The 
sad fact remains however, that there 
are about twenty-two millions of these 
widows in India, great numbers of 
whom are still children, who have be- 
fore them only lives of misery, wretch- 
edness and sorrow. Will not the wom- 
en and girls of Christian lands, remem- 
bering what their lives have become 
through the Gospel, lift up their hearts 
constantly in prayer to God that the 
sad lot of these poor little widows of 
India may be brightened. 


22 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


The condition of the Hindu wife is 
much better than that of the widow, 
but her life is not the life of compan- 
ionship and heart-union of many Chris- 
tian wives. The Hindu wife is in no 
sense the equal of her husband, she is 
his slave. They do not sit and talk 
together, she knows nothing to talk 
about as she is not taught to read and 
write, and he always seeks the com- 
panionship of men. They may not sit 
and eat together, that is altogether op- 
posed to Hindu custom. She must 
wait upon him while he eats and after 
he has finished she can have what is 
left; but she must not be seen eating 
by her husband. When out on a jour- 
ney the wife must not walk by her 
husband’s side, but must walk behind 
him. If there be anything to carry she 
must carry it and the baby too. He does 
not usually carry anything unless 
there be too much for her to carry. 
The women are content with this be- 
cause they know nothing better. It 
was their fate to be born women and 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 23 


they suppose they are treated as wo- 
men should be treated. 

The Mahommedan women are very 
little better off than their Hindu sis- 
ters. She may be considered rather as 
the toy of her husband. A Mohamme- 
dan is allowed by the Koran to have 
four wives at a time and he may di- 
vorce them as often as he pleases, if 
they fail to please him. Just as a 
child tires of a toy and throws it aside 
and takes another, so a Mohammedan 
tires of one wife and wants another in 
her place. 

The woman of India can never have 
the Gospel—which alone can lastingly 
benefit and brighten their lives—only 
as Christian women, called of God, 
shall go out and take it to them. Ow- 
ing to Hindu customs, and laws gov- 
erning Hindu society, it is impossible 
for men missionaries to preach the 
Gospel to the women. Here is a no- 
ble field for the consecrated effort, and 
sanctified intelligence of our Christian 
young women to be used for God. Will 


24 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


you not dedicate your lives to Him for 
this purpose? Can there be anything 
more noble or anything more worthy 
of your highest aims and aspirations, 
than thus to be used of God to give the 
Gospel to these whose lives are so sad 
and whom the Gospel can make so 
glad? There are many noble examples 
of what the Gospel can do for India’s 
women and some of these are standing 
in the forefront of the battle helping 
to lift their less fortunate sisters. 
Hinduism holds its people firmly in 
the terrible, three-fold, vice-like grip of 
custom, creed and caste. To break 
through any one of these is thought to 
be a worse sin than adultery or murder, 
and, because of the social ostracism 
and persecution to be endured, re- 
quires more courage than a Hindu or- 
dinarily has. Only very strong con- 
viction by the Holy Spirit and His own 
courage and strength imparted can 
enable these poor people to break 
through and come really out for God. 
Much has been spoken and written of 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 25 


Hindu customs, many of which are so 
bad in their effects; of caste and its 
terrible power; and of the bondage of 
the people to creed through the pow- 
er of the priests, that perhaps the best 
way to cause their power to be under- 
stood is rather by illustration than ex- 
planation. 

One of the most pernicious of Hindu 
customs, and one from which many 
evils spring, is that of child-marriage, 
already referred to. Although many 
of the people see the evil of this cus- 
tom, very few have courage to stand 
for their convictions in the face of pop- 
ular feeling, and to thus bring upon 
themselves the enmity of their rela- 
tives and caste-people. The reformers 
who sometimes speak out loudest in 
their meetings against this custom, 
and the injustice of child-widows in 
not allowing them to remarry, through 
fear often follow the pupular custom 
when there is a little girl in their own 
families. The following illustration 
will show how bondage to such cus- 


26 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


toms hinders the spread of the 
Gospel and the people from coming 
out for Christ: 

“My dear wife and I, while touring 
among the towns and villages of North 
Berar, came one Monday to the town 
of Anjangaon. It was market-day and 
some ten thousand people from the 
town and surrounding villages were 
gathered together to buy and sell. We 
spent the afternoon and evening in the 
market selling books and tracts and 
preaching the Word. On the follow- 
ing morning we thought we would 
preach once in the town before going 
. on farther. But as the town was a 
large one, having about eleven thous- 
and inhabitants, and we had only time 
to preach once, we wondered where we 
should go to get the most people. We 
got upon our knees and asked God to 
direct us to that part of the town 
where the people would be most will- 
ing to hear us. We then walked out 
into the town and soon came to a place 
where two roads crossed and that 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. PH 


seeming a likely place we stepped back 
on one of the corners and a crowd soon 
gathered at the sound of our cornet. 
After we had sung a Gospel hymn I be- 
gan to address them, when a man 
came hurriedly out of a house near by 
bringing in his hand a book neatly cov- 
ered with paper which he handed to 
me. On opening it I found it to be a 
Marathi New Testament presented to 
the weavers of Anjangoan by Rey. M. 
B. Fuller. Mr. Fuller, when travel- 
ing through there on his way to a large 
religious fair, had stopped and 
preached to these silk weavers, of 
whom there are about three hundred 
families in this town, and had given 
them this New Testament. It had evi- 
dences of having been much used. As 
he handed it to me he said, “We want 
you to take that back and give us an 
Old Testament in its stead.” We an- 
swered that we did not wish to take 
that from him, he could keep that and 
we would bring him an Old Testament 
also. A month or two later we went 


28 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


up there again and presented them 
with an Old Testament. We had a 
very blessed time preaching among 
them, many of them apparently deeply 
interested in the word spoken. After 
the preaching quite a number of them 
bought Gospels. As we drove off 
down the street one of the men held 
up his book in the air and shouted af- 
ter us, “From today I am going to wor- 
ship the Living God.” 

We visited this town many times af- 
ter this and on each subsequent occas- 
sion it seemed the work was spreading 
more and growing deeper. The leader 
of the weavers, who kept the books in 
his possession, would go around 
among the people with the New Tes- 
tament, read to them, and tell them 
they should give up idolatry and begin 
to worship the True and Living God. 
On one occasion he knelt with me in 
the market place and prayed earnestly, 
“Oh God, for Jesus Christ’s sake, par- 
don my many sins.” The work spread 
from the weavers into two other castes 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 29 


and over the river into another village, 
where some of the leading men got 
deeply interested. Even the Brahmin 
postmaster got stirred up and bought 
an English New Testament, as he 
could read English. Over twenty wo- 
men knelt in prayer in their homes 
with one of our lady missionaries. It 
seemed as though the Holy Spirit were 
moving upon the whole neighborhood. 
Suddenly, however, the whole work 
came to a stop through this awful 
bondage to custom. The leader, who 
had so boldly prayed with us, was 
asked to come out boldly on Christ’s 
side and confess Him publicly in bap- 
tism. This was the crucial test with 
him. He had a pretty little daughter 
about three years of age. He said he 
must get his little daughter married 
first and then he would be baptized. 
We tried to show him the wrong and 
foolishness of marrying such a little 
girl and that by marrying her to a Hin- 
du he would forever hinder her from 
becoming a Christian. We told him 


30 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


of our Christian marriage customs and 
urged him to let his little daughter 
grow up as Christians did. But all 
our reasoning seemed in vain. His re- 
plies were, “That is our custom, I must 
do it, if I do not marry her the people 
will make my name bad.” As all the 
people were more or less looking to 
him, the whole work stopped right 
there because of that foolish custom. 
It went back from that point, so much 
so that some time afterwards some 
of our dear missionaries who went 
there were hooted ont of the place. 
Thus the poor man was willing to 
lose his own soul rather than go 
against the feelings of his people, by 
not following the regular custom. 
Such is the awful bondage of the peo- 
ple to custom even when they see them 
to be wrong. Their saying, “As our 
forefathers did, so must we do” applies 
here also. Often the missionaries are 
disappointed at seeing some whom 
they think are so near the kingdom, 
just another step and they will be over 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 31 


the line, then something like the above 
happens and all their work seems for 
the time to be undone. 

Creed also, through the power of the 
Brahmin priests and astrologers, holds 
the people in perpetual bondage. The 
poor Hindus are more under the con- 
trol of these priests than the Roman 
Catholics are under their priests 
through auricular confession. They 
are afraid to do anything without first 
consulting one of them. If a farmer 
wants to sow his field he must first 
consult the astrologer, who pretends 
to consult the stars and tells him what 
will be an auspicious day. If a man 
wants to start on a journey much the 
same ceremony is gone through. If a 
god is to be set up, a man will set up a 
stone, sculptured or otherwise, and put 
some red paint on it, but his creed 
teaches him that until the Brahmin 
priest has muttered over it the incan- 
tations that are supposed to transform 
it into a god, it is only a stone. When 
a child is to be born he is called in to 


32 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


tell whether it is to be a boy or a girl. 
Of course he oftener guesses wrong 
than right but he ingeniously explains 
the reason of a child being born other 
than he predicts and the easily de- 
ceived people forget his many mis- 
takes and praise him when he guesses 
right. After a child is born he is 
called in to tell the child’s horoscope; 
and when it is married he performs the 
marriage ceremonies. When a person 
dies he is at the head of the funeral 
ceremonies muttering his holy (?) in- 
cantations. For each of these many 
ceremonies he receives a good fee and 
thus grows rich at the expense of the 
poor. Even after persons are dead 
he does not let them alone, he must 
perform the annual schraddh ceremon- 
ies in memory of the dead, and so goes 
on annually getting money out of the 
sons for their dead fathers. Every- 
thing in Hinduism is made to profit the 
Brahmins at the expense of the lower 
castes. In this connection the peo- 
ple have a saying which is very sug- 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 33 


gestive, “Potoba mag _ Vithoba.” 
“First the worship of the stomach, 
then the worship of the god.” For this 
reason the Brahmin priests like to 
keep the lower castes in ignorance, be- 
cause were they educated they could 
not exercise such authority over them. 
For this reason also they strenuously 
oppose the work of the missionaries, 
and any desire in the people to become 
Christians, as the people would imme- 
diately get out from under their power 
and they would lose their fees. 
Terrible as is the power of custom 
and creed, caste controls the people 
with a more tyrannical despotism than 
all and makes much more effective the 
other evils. It yields to nothing and 
nobody. It hinders all progress in all 
directions, social or religious, and is 
largely the cause of much of the pover- 
ty and backwardness of India today, 
and rests as a baneful curse upon land 
and people. It is just the opposite of 
the Christian doctrines of “the Fath- 
erhood of God” and the “Brotherhood 


34 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


of Man.” Its devotees are taught that 
to break caste is a worse sin than adul- 
tery or murder. It takes away all free- 
dom of thought and liberty of con- 
science. A Hindu must not think for 
himself, he must act in accordance 
with what is thought right or wrong 
by his caste-fellows, and what they 
think is best for him. He must not 
eat or drink anything prepared by a 
person of lower caste than himself. 
Though he be ever so thirsty he must 
not drink water from any vessel owned 
by or even touched by a person of an- 
other caste; nor must he drink water 
from a well owned by a person of an- 
other caste. He must not touch a low- 
caste person, nor a low-caste person 
touch him, as that is considered to be 
defiling. Who but the poor Hindus 
would submit to such unreasonable 
curtailment of individual liberty? How 
foolish this all appears in the light of 
God’s word, where it says, “There is 
nothing from without a man that en- 
tering into him can defile him: but the 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 35 


things which come out of him, those 
are they which defile the man.” Mark 
vii. 15. “For from within, out of the 
heart, proceed evil thoughts, adulter- 
ies, fornications, murders * * All 
these evil things come from within, 
and defile the man.” Mark vii. 21, 23. 

During the recent famine in India 
the terrible power of caste was very 
strikingly illustrated. Many whose 
lives might have been saved, starved to 
death rather than touch food prepared 
by other than their own caste people. 
One dear missionary going along a 
street one day, saw a poor man lying 
by the roadside, slowly dying of star- 
vation. He said, “My poor man, I will 
go and get you something to eat.” He 
went to his home and had some rice 
prepared in just the way the Hindus 
like it, each grain white, dry and sep- 
arate. He put it in front of the starv- 
ing man and bade him eat. The man, 
shaking his head, replied, “I cannot 
eat it.’ The missionary told him he 
would soon die unless he ate some 


36 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


food. He answered, “Well, what is 
the use of life, if I break my caste?” 
He lay hungrily looking at the food 
within his reach that would have 
saved his life; but because of caste he 
dare not touch it. Thus he died with 
food before him, which but for caste 
he could have eaten and lived. Such 
is the awful power of caste and such is 
the terrible grip with which Hinduism 
holds its people in such merciless bon- 
dage. 

In thus condemning caste we cannot 
but admire the faithfulness of the peo- 
ple to its principles and long that 
Christians may constantly live as 
faithful to the truth as it is in Jesus. 
Oh let us speedily give these poor 
slaves of ignorance, superstition, sin 
and false teaching the blessed Gospel 
of liberty and freedom through Christ. 

The persecution that often follows 
open confession of Christ deters many 
from becoming Christians. If a man 
begins to show much interest in the 
missionary or his message he often be- 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 37 


comes a marked man and unless he 
denies his interest in us he will be hin- 
dered from coming in contact with the 
missionary, sometimes being sent to a 
place many miles from where there is 
a missionary. If he has expressed a 
desire to become a Christian, by 
threats on one hand and promises on 
another, he is made to give up his de- 
sire, and sometimes such a one be- 
comes a bitter opponent. Notwith- 
standing the many ways of persecution 
to which they become liable, there are 
many who come out boldly in the face 
of it all and who have become brave 
witnesses to the power of the Gospel. 
These have shown themselves willing 
to endure hardness as good soldiers of 
Jesus Christ, and willing to suffer for 
His Name’s sake. 

There are remarkable instances of 
God’s gracious interposition on behalf 
of His persecuted children. Some time 
since, a Brahmin lawyer of Western 
India, a very intelligent and highly ed- 
ucated man, who had for some time 


388 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


studied the Bible, and had become con- 
vinced that it was God’s Word and 
that Jesus is the only Saviour, decided 
to become a Christian. He came bold- 
ly out for Christ and was baptized. 
Immediately after his baptism his wife 
and children were taken from him, 
they were not allowed to live with him 
any more. Were they not Brahmins, 
while he had become a Christian, 
whose very touch would defile them? 
Then his caste-people tried to take his 
life in various ways, but each time God 
interposed on his behalf. It is a cus 
tom in India for friends to send sweet- 
meats and cookies to each other on fes- 
tival occasions just as in Christian 
lands, at Christmas and Easter cards 
and presents are sent. On one such 
occasion a dish of sweetmeats was sent 
him by some friends in the usual way. 
As he was busy he set them aside with- 
out touching them and went on with 
his work. He was kept from touching 
it all that day. The next morning when 
he came in from his morning’s walk he 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 39 


was surprised to find a number of rats 
dead on the floor. He could not at first 
imagine what had killed them. Some 
time after he thought he would try 
some of the confectionery that had 
been sent him and then he saw that 
the rats had been at it and that was 
what had killed them. God had thus 
kept His child from touching it until 
the rats had shown him that it was 
poisoned. On another occasion as he 
was about to start out on his usual 
morning’s walk, a voice seemed to say 
to him, “Don’t go.” He was inclined 
to disregard it at first, thinking it was 
just due to morbid feeling. But after 
the voice had come three times he 
thought there must be something in it, 
so turned and went indoors. Some 
time afterwards on going into town on 
business he met some men carrying a 
man to the hospital, with his head all 
broken and bleeding. On inquiry he 
found out that on the road which he 
would have taken had he disregarded 
the voice, some men had been in hiding 


40 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


behind a thicket waiting to jump out 
on him when he came along and kill 
him. They had mistaken the other 
man for him and had fallen upon him, 
leaving him for dead on the road. In 
this way the dear Lord had again won- 
derfully preserved the life of His child 
from the bitterness and malignity of 
his persecutors. 

Many of the high-caste people who 
become Christians have to face some 
such persecution as this; but the low- 
castes and the out-castes are also per- 
secuted. <A large number of low-caste 
people in the province of Gujerat re- 
cently became Christians. Their caste- 
people and others at once began to in- 
jure them in various ways. Their 
houses were set on fire and their crops 
burned down in their fields, sometimes 
they would be met singly on the roads 
and beaten. Often some of these poor 
men have come running into the mis- 
sionary’s house with their heads cut 
and bleeding. In spite of these cruel 
persecutions however, they stand true 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. Al 


to God. Such a condition of things 
should make every Christian heart cry 
out, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quick: 
ly.’ Hinduism, that awful system of 
idolatry, superstition and sin, can nev- 
er be effectually broken up until Jesus 
comes. India’s wrongs, and the 
wrongs of the poor little child-widows, 
which cry unto God, can never righted 
until the Prince of Peace comes, who 
shall reign in righteousness and under 
whose benign rule the cruel power of 
caste shall be broken; and the oppres- 
sion, tyranny and robbery of a rapac- 
ious Hindu priesthood forever done 
away. 

The great mistake is often made by 
many dear Christian people that India 
is now pretty well evangelized, that 
as missionaries have been going there 
ever since Carey went in 1792, there 
must be about a sufficient number 
there now. But this is very far from 
being true, there being yet many 
thousands of towns and villages in In- 
dia in which the Gospel has never been 


42 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


preached. There are some provinces al- 
most entirely without the Gospel, and 
many districts’ and some tribes entire- 
ly so. The province of Behar, in which 
the poppy is cultivated for the manu- 
facture of opium, contains a popula 
tion of twenty-four million souls, with 
only six missionaries, or one mission- 
ary to every four millions. The North 
West provinces have one missionary to 
every six hundred and sixty thousand; 
the Bengal Presidency one to every four 
hundred and two thousand; the Pun- 
jab has one missionary to every four 
hundred and eighty thousand. Taking 
the average of India as a whole, in- 
cluding the large cities such as Bom- 
bay, Calcutta and Madras, in each of 
which there are large numbers of mis- 
sionaries, there is only one missionary 
to every two hundred and eighty 
thousand people. There are many hill 
tribes in India among whom there is 
no witness for Jesus, and in many 
parts of India one can travel a hun- 
dred miles without finding a mission- 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 43 


ary. There is plenty of room in India 
yet for missionaries to go fired with 
Paul’s holy ambition to “preach the 
Gospel, not where Christ was already 
named, lest I should build upon an- 
other man’s foundation.” 

It is only the Gospel that can bring 
liberty to India’s millions in bondave, 
only through Christ can they obtain 
satisfaction for their hungry hearts. 
“Ror whosoever shall call upon the 
name of the Lord shall be saved.” How 
shall they call on Him in whom they 
have not believed? And how shall they 
believe in Him of whom they have not 
heard? And how shall they hear with- 
out a preacher? And how shall they 
preach except they be sent?” God 
specially lays upon His people ‘he re- 
sponsibility to give the heathen the 
Gospel but we are so slow to respond 
to His call. He has especially laid In- 
dia at the door of His Church, with pe- 
culiar and special opportunities for 
the rapid spread of the Gospel. No 
other heathen land is so fully open as 


44 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD, 


India, with a government giving pro- 
tection to the lives and properties of 
the missionaries in every part. Be- 
tween most of the larger towns good 
government roads have been built, and 
in many parts there are railways. In 
every part of the Empire missionaries 
have liberty to preach the Gospel. The 
terrible calamities that have befallen 
Irdia have done much to open the way 
for the Gospel by softening the hearts 
of the people and by showing the utter 
inability of their idols to help them. 
“When thy judgments are in the earth, 
the inhabitants of the worid will learn 
righteousness.” Isa. xxvi. 9. In no 
country have God’s judgments, war, 
pestilence, earthquake, plague and 
famine been abroad as in India, and 
they have opened the hearts of the peo- 
ple as never before to listen to the 
Word and to confess that these judg- 
ments have come upon them on ac- 
count of their sins. Shall we not meet 
God in this time of opportunity and 
pray “the Lord of the harvest that He 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 45 


thrust forth laborers into His harvest- 
field.” “Say not ye there are yet four 
months and then cometh harvest.” 
“Lift up your eyes and look on the 
fields for they are white already to har- 
vest.” Let us keep this great Empire, 
with its teeming millions, constantly 
before the Lord, until every part of it 
has the Gospel. And let all truly 
Christian hearts help to answer their 
own prayers by self-denying giving and 
by going as God opens the way. Dif- 
ficulties there are in the way of new 
missionaries but none so great that in 
the strength of Christ they may not be 
overcome. . 

The language is perhaps one of the 
chief difficulties to meet the newly ar- 
rived missionary. There are alto- 
gether about one hundred and fifty 
languages and dialects in India, many 
of them entirely different from each 
other in character and construction. 
But as most of the main languages are 
spoken by millions of people it is sel- 
dom necessary to learn more than one, 


46 INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD. 


Hindu is spoken by about sixty mil- 
lions and Marathi by about forty mil- 
lions, and the other chief languages by 
correspondingly large numbers. These 
languages are very much more diffi- 
cult to learn than the European lan- 
guages, having a much more difficult 
grammar and a fuller verb. This need 
not stumble any, however, as we know 
many missionaries who had had few 
advantages of education and some who 
had never studied English grammar, 
whom God enabled to get those diffi- 
cult tongues well and to preach the 
Gospel in them. 

Another difficulty in the way is the 
climate with its great heat and deadly 
diseases. But the dear Lord has again 
and again proven Himself equal to de- 
liver His children in every emergency, 
and to fully supply their every need. 
If there at His bidding, for His glory, 
and living in obedience to His will, the 
life of the missionary is just as safe in 
India as in America. Adaptability to 
the climate, to new and strange sur- 


INDIA AS A MISSION FIELD, 47 


roundings, to the manners and cus- 
toms of the people, and the many 
things that come into a missionary’s 
life, is easily acquired by the mission- 
ary really sent out of God. 

O may God lay the need of India’s 
dying millions—dying at the rate of 
ten millions a year—upon the hearts 
of His people in these Christian lands, 
so that we may renew our consecra- 
tion and efforts to give them the light 
and liberty of the Gospel. 


